Frailty Is Thy Name
by Estora
Summary: Ashes verse. Falling in love is a repulsive state of mind and a useless emotion, and is perhaps one of the greatest mistakes to be committed in a man's life. Young Palpatine finds this out the hard way. One-shot.


_Disclaimer:__ This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by George Lucas. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended._

* * *

Okay, a bit of an explanation: for the twenty or so people who read _The Flower and the Serpent_ a few days ago (according to the hits page), this is the same story but edited and retitled because I was unhappy with the first version posted. _Frailty Is Thy Name_ can be considered as a companion piece to my full-length story _From The Ashes_, inspired by quotes from Chapters Fifteen ("Borderline") and Seventeen ("Esoteric Paranoid Hysteric"). However, you don't need to read _From The Ashes_ in order to understand this story, as all relevant quotes are in this one. I apologise for the deletion and subsequent repost, but I'm a lot happier with this slightly edited version. I had envisioned getting a Beta to go through this as well to aid with characterisations and such, which may happen in the near future, so if that comes to pass I will simply replace this with the Beta-d version. I hope you enjoy this piece, and if you have the time I would deeply appreciate it if you left a review; whether it be compliment, constructive criticism, or a flame, I seriously don't mind. Thank you!

* * *

**Frailty Is Thy Name**

†

"_Tell me what you regard as your greatest strength, so I will know how best to undermine you; tell me of your greatest fear, so I will know which I must force you to face; tell me what you cherish most, so I will know what to take from you; and tell me what you crave, so that I might deny you."_

"_My greatest strength is my cunning – you cannot undermine me, for I shall outwit you. My greatest fear is nonexistent – you cannot force me to face what is not here. I cherish your teachings, my Master – you cannot take those away, for I have already learnt them. I crave power –"_

"– _And this I can deny you, my young apprentice…for you have no power, least of all over yourself."_

– Darth Plagueis and Darth Sidious, 58 BBY.

* * *

Falling in love is a repulsive state of mind and a useless emotion, and is perhaps one of the greatest mistakes to be committed in a man's life – evidence of a weak-minded and foolish person who has no control over himself. So say the teachings of the Sith.

You find it curious that, despite the irrefutable, irreconcilable differences between the teachings of the Jedi and the Sith, this is the one and only thing the two agree upon. Certainly, the Jedi express it less…forcefully, but when their flowery philosophies are stripped away like flesh from the bone, it means the same thing.

You are not weak-minded. You are not foolish.

* * *

One of your names is Éamon Palpatine, and you are a mere twenty-four standard years old when you first meet the daughter of one of your many political rivals. A beautiful girl, a little younger than yourself, with wide blue eyes and the gag-worthy aura of innocence.

At first, you are disinclined to approach her. Why this is, you aren't sure of – any other time you would leap at the opportunity to twist such a fine specimen of the light to the darkness, such is your hobby. To take a person's mind and turn it against itself is your speciality, and ever so much _fun_.

It starts slowly. A greeting one day, a surprised 'fancy seeing you here' the next. A bit of clever chatter, and steadily you find yourself trying to impress her instead of twisting her mind. She is a peculiar woman. She possesses a silent strength that both intrigues and repels you: resilient, patient, strong-willed in her own quiet way. She could have been a Jedi in another life, had she the midichlorian count. She is not, however, a woman for politics. She is too kind, too soft-hearted. You should be disgusted by the sheer _innocence_ she carries, and yet you are not. It has been a long time since you have last met someone as pure as this woman.

You are not a romantic man. You are straight to the point when you declare you intentions regarding your 'relationship' six months after meeting her.

You tell yourself it is a marriage of convenience, a way to further your political ambitions, even as a stab of _something_ makes your heart hammer pleasingly when she answers 'yes', even when your lips unwillingly form a smile.

Your Master seems pleased you have taken the hold you have over this woman to use for your own benefit, when you tell him what you have done. What you do not tell him is that, sometimes, you enjoy her company. Sometimes she makes you laugh, and sometimes you get lost in intelligent conversation that, for once, has nothing to do with the Force or the Darkness or power. For all her meekness with politics, she has a good head and understanding of it and you find it easy to share your ambitions with her. She is supportive, silent.

Perfect.

She is a tender lover, and you know you cannot be violent with this delicate flower. It would be so easy, one night, simply to throw her down with the Force and ravish her like a common whore as you so desire, to feel her nails tearing down your back in the throes of passion. But she is not a common whore – she is a lady, both inside and outside the bedroom, and so you deign to be gentle when you make love, and she loves you for it.

* * *

You share a year of blissful marriage, unfortunately interrupted by frequent absences that cannot be helped. Often you must leave your wife to pursue and further your influence in the Nubian politics. You loathe doing this, but your ambitions must come above your woman. She understands, of course – besides, she reminds you as she smiles sweetly over at your undersecretary who considers himself your 'friend', she has someone to look after her while you are gone.

Perhaps this should have tipped you off, but all you do is agree and silently assess the man's character. He is a bit of an idiot, harmless really, though terribly handsome – far more so than you, and you acknowledge this with a hidden scowl. His politics hold no comparison to yours, and this at least you take comfort in. Your wife prefers intelligent conversation.

You return from Coruscant a few nights earlier than expected. You can feel something out of place before you even reach your room; the Force is tense with fear and the air is thick with the smell of sweat and sin and sex, and the Darkness hisses. The Force shields your presence tightly – you are the shadow cast the flickering candlelight, the cold breath of wind that caresses the curtains. You are silent, invisible, as you are the sole witness to their primal sin.

You watch. You watch your wife, your beautiful, innocent wife, and that man.

You watch as they rut like animals in the heat. It is disgusting and brutal – they groan with every thrust of his hips and her slender legs are wrapped tightly around his waist, pulling him closer and closer. Her blue eyes are alight with fire and passion and her skin is covered in a sheath of sweat. She never looks this alive when you are with her.

You watch as your wife's flesh trembles when she comes with a heated moan. Her lover captures her lips in his, stifling their cries of passion.

You watch your whore of a wife, and the Darkness seethes around you, pulsating with the fury of a scorned and betrayed husband.

You could kill them right now.

How easy it would be to just reach out and wrap the Force around her slender neck, squeezing and cutting her off from life, watching that pretty face contort as she gasps for air and tears at her throat, pleading pathetically for _mercy, mercy_. How easy it would be let lightning fly from your fingertips, burning that man's flesh and seeing him writhe and scream in agony – so quick, so easy, to end their lives this very moment –

But you retreat into the shadows again and withdraw when her lover finishes with a shuddering groan and collapses onto her naked body like the animal he is.

You tell yourself it was just a marriage of convenience, a way to further your political ambitions, even as a stab of _something_ makes your heart clench unbearably when she whispers his name, even when your eyes unwillingly lets the traitorous tears escape at her betrayal.

You could kill them, right now. But taking revenge in a mindless rage is not satisfying nor is it a reflection of your intelligence and character. If you strike out at them now, using the Darkness that pulses around you temptingly, your Master will be right – _you have no power, least of all over yourself_.

And then you realise – he is already right. You have no power, _especially_ not over yourself. It was hers, and she used it to crush you.

* * *

_My greatest strength is my cunning – Plagueis cannot undermine me, for I will outwit him. My greatest fear is nonexistent – he cannot force me to face what is not here. I cherish my wife – my Master cannot take her away, for she has already done that herself, the whore that she is. I crave power, over myself and others, and I will gain it with or without his teachings. He cannot deny me what I do not ask of him._

– From the personal writings of Éamon Palpatine, 57 BBY.

* * *

Biding your time is torturous, but it will serve you well in the end. Patience is of the essence – only a fool rushes in headfirst.

You have been quiet lately, your wife observes one night. You do not answer. How can she stand there and sound so innocent, so pure, before you when she is nothing more than a deceitful slut? You could have given her the planet, the galaxy, anything she dreamed of, and she dares stand before you as sweet as the day you met her when she takes that man to your bed every night you are gone.

She says your name questioningly, and finally you look up. You're sorry, you tell her and take off your reading glasses. You are just troubled lately, with the string of elections you have lost. You did not mean to ignore her.

Except, you think, you did. You take her hands in your own, but they feel cold and impersonal. She looks away, and for the barest second you imagine you can see a flicker of guilt in her traitorous blue eyes. She says that it's all right –

Oh, but it is _not_, you insist. To make up for your coldness lately, you propose that you take tomorrow night off and dine in one of Theed's finest restaurants. In fact, why not bring your friend along as well? It has been many months since you have had the opportunity to catch up with him, surely she won't mind his presence.

When she thinks you are not looking, she presses a trembling hand to her forehead like the guilty trollop she is.

* * *

"…_I never once told [them] how sorry I was, for choosing the route that got us into the crash. Not once."_

– Supreme Chancellor Palpatine to Padawan Anakin Skywalker, 22 BBY.

* * *

It is pathetically easy to orchestrate.

You choose the route to the restaurant, the main route. Traffic on Naboo is not terribly bad, but peak hour sometimes is reminiscent of Coruscanti regions. It doesn't take much. You are at the controls and your wife is at your side. Your 'friend' is in the back, behind your wife, so both are on the same side of the vehicle. A bit of manipulation with the Force on a weak, speeding mind and the person who smashes into the passenger side is dead instantly, urged on by the Darkness which whispered _faster, faster_.

The crash is devastating, and in the end you never do make it to that restaurant.

Your injuries are superficial – severe enough to be proof that you are in no way at fault, but not so bad as to permanently affect you. You will make a full recovery.

You wife, on the other hand…oh, her face. Her beautiful, beautiful face, sliced up by the shards of transparisteel, and her leg crushed by sheets of durasteel. She will never be able to use her left leg again, healers say. They were lucky to even save it.

And _him_ – he is paralysed from the waist down. A twisted shard of durasteel lodged in his spinal cord on his lower back. He will never walk again, never regain movement in _anything_ below the waist.

The Darkness smirks. Well, it's only fitting, really, that he should be rendered impotent in more ways than one.

A week after the accident, you go to see her at the medical ward with flowers in your hand. She doesn't acknowledge you, but this is to be expected. She answers to nothing you say, doesn't react when you find a vase and transfer the flowers into it.

You place the vase of flowers on the bedside tablem next her trembling, weeping figure gently, making sure she can smell the subtle fragrance when a light breeze travels through the room. A strand of hair falls into her eyes, and you brush it aside tenderly. And then you leave, and her soft sobs become fainter and fainter with every step you take further away from her.

You're sorry, you whisper from the doorway, and although she doesn't hear you, for a bare, terrifying moment, you fear you might have actually meant it.

_Frailty, thy name is Éamon Palpatine_, the Darkness mocks, and it feels like a poison being tipped into your ear.

* * *

"…_I do understand what a difficult time he's been going through. I know I did after a terrible accident that crippled my late wife…It was a terrible time, for the both of us. …In the end, her injuries became too much for her and she suffocated. Metaphorically speaking, of course. …Her situation smothered her and she committed suicide, despite my constant support."_

– Supreme Chancellor Palpatine to Jedi Knight Obi-Wan Kenobi, 22 BBY.

* * *

It is all about the small things, you think smugly. Thousands of small incidences, littered everywhere, inconceivable on their own and impossible to link together. Subtle power plays that affect her subconscious, but you and only you are aware of the ultimate impact.

It is your masterpiece to date – a milestone for the next one.

You were right about her when you just met her: she does possess a silent strength that continues to intrigue you. Except then, it was almost admiration, evidence of a frail mind. Now, it is a curiosity – just how far can you go, how far can you push her, before that façade dissolves? How long can she keep living like this? Every day you remind her, don't give her the chance to let go and move on.

You enjoy that sense of power you dangle over her head every time you catch her when she falls, when you insist on following her everywhere _just in case_ she needs you. It is so obvious that she hates your never-ending help and despises your touch; not because she hates _you_, but because her own guilt eats away at her heart like a disease scouring the backwater slum planets in the Outer Rim, rotting her from the inside out. You can see it, feel it, through the Force – she doesn't think that she deserves your help after her sordid affair with that man, but how can she turn you away when she thinks it will hurt you?

She doesn't, of course – but you aren't helping her. This is torture for her, and it's all really just a game in the end.

* * *

Months, it takes, but it is worth it. Every seemingly innocuous word and inconspicious action, _let me do that, dear_, or grasping her arm when she walks. You are all but spoon-feeding her now, though really it is only a matter of time. She can't stand to look at her own reflection, can't stand to meet your eyes and tell you to _stop it_.

One night, she tries to take her plate and cutlery from the table herself without waiting for the protocol droid, and you know that this is it when her lips tremble on their own accord. You tell her to sit down, the droid will do that.

But she insists, she _can_ do it, and she pushes her chair back while supporting her weakened body on the edge of the table.

_Sit. Down._

She stares at you, shocked by your tone, then lowers back down into her seat shakily.

She will _not_ do it, you stress. She is still too weak, too fragile. You wouldn't want her to _hurt_ herself. She worries you so.

And finally, something snaps, and that serene façade shatters like the transparisteel window of the private speeder in the crash – thousands of pieces exploding away from each other, screaming with agonising terror as they descend and slice open her skin. She snaps at you that she is _not_ an invalid, she is not, stop treating her like some delicate flower –

Oh, but she _is_. She _is_ a delicate flower, you say, your breath as icy as the winds of Hoth. She is a cripple, an invalid. Her pretty face is destroyed, she cannot walk or run. What _can_ she do, when she is so pathetic?

She falls to the floor and her fingers twist in her hair as she moans. Her scarred flesh is inflamed with her turmoil, and she has never looked more unsightly.

_Nothing_, you hiss as you approach her slowly, closing in like the prison you have become for her, because she is _nothing_ without you.

She sobs and chokes out your name, and you tenderly brush a strand of hair away from her eyes – mockingly.

Hush, dearest, you murmur. You'll take care of her. You'll take care of everything.

You pull out the knife you have concealed in your sleeve and show it to her. You place it beside her wretched, shuddering figure gently, making sure she can see the silver glint when the candlelight hits it and her own reflection when you tilt it, just at the right angle. And then you leave, and her hitching hysterical breaths and distressed moans become fainter and fainter with every step you take further away from her.

_Frailty, thy name is woman_.

This time, the Darkness smiles.

Over the next few days the local HoloNet thrums to life with articles about the untimely death of up-and-rising politician Éamon Palpatine's wife. Medical examination reports prove suicide by slashed wrists and blood loss as the cause of death – long, deep cuts running down the soft underside of her forearms. Depression, it is decided, was the key factor in her psychological breakdown. She just couldn't deal with her injuries.

* * *

"…_I once had a very close friend who suffered a permanent injury…. I regret that I was not with him as much as I should have been, during his recovery. He became depressed, self-loathing. Ah, if only I paid as much attention to him as I did to politics. I believe he thought I had stopped caring for his well-being when I gave him distance…maybe even blamed me for not being there. …He committed suicide, not long after my wife passed on. He couldn't live with his injuries. Couldn't live with _me_ pretending he would get back to normal…"_

– Supreme Chancellor Palpatine to Padawan Anakin Skywalker, 22 BBY.

* * *

The man is calm and straight-forward, not unlike your late wife, but he is weak and it is altogether far too easy to make him depressed and self-loathing. It is a bit sad, really, how this man considers himself a friend of yours, and believes you are his, after what he did.

Like with your wife, it is the small things, except this time you do things differently.

_I'm fine_, he says when his chair gets stuck at the top of a long staircase, and you shrug and accept this and keep walking, leaving him behind you. Well, he did say he was fine.

It takes only weeks. Too quick for your liking, but ultimately it is the ride that counts. You throw yourself into politics and he, as your undersecretary, is buried under mountains of work. He must be your anchor when you break down into tears over your dearly departed wife, and he cannot weep for the woman he rutted for it will give him and his disgusting sin away. He says he is fine and you believe him, and give him distance even though silently he craves for human assistance, _your_ assistance. Maybe you don't care, is what he thinks, and soon he blames you for not being around when he needs help with getting to places. But he can't ask for help. He never does. Why this is, you know perfectly well: how _dare_ he even _think_ of asking help from the very friend whose wife he ravished in your very bed?

You love the smell of guilt in the evening.

Finally, it happens, and it is a thrill when it does. He has fallen out of his chair and looks like a drowned rat, struggling on the floor, and his eyes are burning with humiliation and defeat as he holds out his hand, desperately seeking your aid.

So you look at him in the eye, and you fold your arms across your body. Get up, you goad. Go on, get up! You're not going to help him. He said he was _fine_, remember?

_Snake_, he snarls through his wretched sobs, and the Darkness laughs.

Pathetic, you answer, and you walk over to the window to open it for a light breeze.

He is found the next morning, a bloody broken mess on the steps of the Palace of Theed were the local police claim he threw himself from the highest window. Another tragedy.

Poor Éamon Palpatine, coo the media and public. Poor man. First his wife and now his friend, so close to each other too.

It creates a strong sympathy vote, and you win the next election.

* * *

Falling in love is a repulsive state of mind and a useless emotion, and is perhaps one of the greatest mistakes to be committed in a man's life – evidence of a weak-minded and foolish person who has no control over himself.

You find it curious that, despite the irrefutable, irreconcilable differences between the teachings of the Jedi and the Sith, this is the one and only thing the two agree upon. Certainly, the Jedi express it less…forcefully, but when their flowery philosophies are stripped away like flesh from the bone, it means the same thing.

One of your names is Éamon Palpatine, and you are a mere twenty-six standard years old when you can say with absolute certainty: you are not weak-minded. You are not foolish. Not anymore. You crave power, over yourself and others, and this you have gained without your Master's teachings.

At the end of your finest show, the Darkness applaudes and you take a bow.


End file.
